Step 19: Wire it up

Step 20: Go!

Insert the 9V plug into the power socket on the Arduino to power up your robot. Note: If you decide that you want to reprogram your Arduino, before y...

Converting an RC car into a robot is a quick and easy way to get started with robotics. At the very least, when you get bored of playing with your remote control car after three days, you can turn it into a robot that will do all of your evil bidding. Well, maybe not all of it, but at least a sizable amount.

In this Instructable I will go over the bare minimum you need to get started. Think of it as a template for making a basic robot that can be expanded with sensors, code, and additional hardware to do some really amazing things. You can now impress your family, make new friends, and scare your pets with the power of robot magic.

Hi Randofo! I am running an RC car with the same setup as yours. Will I be able to wire up the car's standard 6v battery pack to the motor shield without frying the ping sensor? Will the ping sensor take on 6v?

Nice tutorial, thanks for sharing! We built a similar project. However, we installed an Android device onto a RC car and used an IOIO board instead to control it autonomously. Here is the preliminary result:

Great Instructable! Your build and pictures are so clean! Thank you so much for documenting this so clearly!

The choice of adding a motor shield kind of confuses me, though. If you have a steady hand then connecting four wires to the car's RX chip and taking advantage of the car's already present H-bridge is pretty simple. You can even send PWM signals and it works to control the motor's speed.

If you already have a motor shield or don't want to solder to a surface mount chip then I totally understand, but one can easily cut out $20 to $30 of the cost of this project with some careful soldering.

Thanks for the great instructions and pictures. My son and I just finished the truck and it worked. However the truck is only going foward and to the right, it pauses and repeats again. When I copied and pasted your scripts a bunch of extra spaces were added between the lines. I will delete them to see if this is the fix?! Otherwise we will have to recheck the Ping soldering and wiring to the Arduino motor shield, to find other errors.

I have made a similar kind off project but instead of an arduino motor shield and a ping, i have attached a adafruit type of motor shied and a hc sr 04 sensor . can you please help and modify this coding for an adafruit motor shield along with a hc sr 04 sensor .

You mentioned that the front motor was the "turn motor". how exactly does that work? does it actually turn or spins the left or right wheels to achieve turning? I'm wondering if one would need 2 motor controllers for an RC that has for motors

Hey there, I used same arduino, same motor shield, same ping sensor, same code, but different rc car, basically the same two simple motors, but somehow my car moves only forward, with a short little stop, than moves again forward even if there are objects, like my hand or foot, It never reverse and doesnt turn the wheels. Can anyone help me? something wrong with the code or ?

Hi, I've used exactly the same kind of Arduino, motor shield, Ping sensor and code but different RC car for my project. However, the rear wheels turn forward and then reverse repeatedly when there is no obstacle. It works fine when there is an obstacle. May I know what's the problem?

Hi there, cool project. Im planning on doing my own. I got this old r/c car wich only has one motor, the rear one is that okay ? do I have to fix the code? and second, what do I do with the originally on/off button and its wires? thanks in advance !

About This Instructable

Bio:My name is Randy and I run the Instructables Design Studio. I'm also the author of the books 'Simple Bots,' and '62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer'. Since I am always making new things, subscri...read more »